BY MARTIN KICH

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will hold a committee hearing on re-opening college campuses in the fall. The hearing will be available live online.

I am not sure what actual impact such a hearing will have since federal coordination of the COVID-19 response has been negligible. But the hearing may affect the funding for higher education in any additional stimulus bill.

At least two of the four witnesses–Mitch Daniels, the President of Purdue University, and Christina Paxon, the President of Brown University–have already made widely reported public comments on re-opening campuses. But it may be interesting to see how they are questioned by the Committee members, who include some of the more idiosyncratic and the more thoughtful members of the Senate.